The Amazing Spider-Man
Director: Marc Webb
Writer: James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent, Steve Kloves
Based on: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko‘s comic
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Irrfan Khan, Chris Zylka

Plot:
Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) grew up with his aunt (Sally Field) and uncle (Martin Sheen) since his parents had to leave him because of his father’s science research. By now, Peter is an adolescent and struggles with the usual teenage problems, like being in love with Gwen (Emma Stone). But then he stumbles upon his father’s notes which in turn leads him to the research of Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). While in Connor’s lab, Peter gets bitten by a weird spider and soon finds that he has developed superpowers.

I’m the first to admit that I’m not the world’s greatest Spider-Man fan. I had hoped that this movie would give me another fresh chance to fall in love with the character, but unfortunately it was way too dumb for anything like that.

The movie’s biggest problem was that the script was horrible. You’d think that with three people working on it they would have caught some of the crappy dialogue or would have thought things through a little. But instead it felt like no thought whatsoever went into the making of this film. Like with the super-hightech company and their outlandish security system that is easier to crack than any pincode.

Which is particularly sad because the cast would have been really good if they had more to work with. But Peter was written as quite an asshole and not even Garfield’s charm can really make up for it. At least he gets a personality. Gwen is not so lucky: she’s any boy’s perfect fantasy: intelligent, beautiful and always available, but not an actual character. Emma Stone is intelligent and charming and beautiful, but she can’t create a personality from nothing. Sally Field was equally wasted. Martin Sheen only gets to wax inspirationally but that’s something he does wonderfully. The only one who gets a bit more out of his character is Rhys Ifans and that is a joy to watch.

It’s a film made with no subtlety at all. From the score (that is just damn awful) to the dialogues to the plotting. And despite the really great special effects, the movie is just too stupid to really enjoy.

For most of the film I just wanted to shake some sense into the people involved. That is really not what I want a movie to do with me.

Summarising: No.